Anurognathidae

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Time: Middle–Late Jurassic (~164–160 million years ago)

Region: Inner Mongolia and Liaoning Province, China

Formation: Yanliao Biota — Daohugou Beds and Tiaojishan Formation

Coloration Data

Scanning electron microscopy of two anurognathid pterosaur specimens (NJU-57003 and CAGS-Z070) revealed densely packed microbodies within their pycnofibres. The vast majority of these were ovoid, consistent with pheomelanosomes (responsible for reddish/rufous coloration), while less frequent rod-shaped bodies were interpreted as eumelanosomes (black pigmentation). Spectroscopic profiles of the fossil material aligned much more closely with pheomelanin-rich signatures than with eumelanin, indicating that these animals were predominantly reddish-brown in life.

Method: Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier-Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), and Energy-Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (EDX).

Publications

• Zixiao Yang, Baoyu Jiang, Maria E. McNamara, Stuart L. Kearns, Michael Pittman, Thomas G. Kaye, Patrick J. Orr, Xing Xu & Michael J. Benton (2019)
  A study describing four types of pycnofibers with branching in two anurognathid pterosaurs.
• Arindam Roy, Michael Pittman, Evan T. Saitta, Thomas G. Kaye, Xing Xu (2020)
  An overview article on the paleo‑coloration of amniotes.

Documents and files

• Yang_et_al_2019_preprint.pdf (PDF)
  Preprint by Yang et al. (2019) from researchgate.net.
• Roy_et_al_2020.pdf (PDF)
  Review article on amniote paleocolor in Biological Reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society.

Reconstructions

Fossils

Size comparison